What is a Behringer V-Amp and why do I need one?

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The Wood Man

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Just starting out - someone suggested a Behringer V-Amp to help get started.

What is it , and what does it do?

I am looking to get started and $$$ are tight.
 
It's a guitar amp simluator along the lines of the POD or J-Station... you very likely DON'T need one if you already have a guitar amp and a decent way to mic it!
 
I recently tried the V-amp, a Pod, and a J-Station. For me, the J-station was hands down the best for me ( I play electric violin). It was also the cheapest, 99 bucks brand stinking new.

The V-amp2 was $139. It sounded decent, but was quite poorly built. It has a cheesy plastic body, and I think if you looked at it the wrong way it would break.
 
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"... It has a cheesy plastic body, and I think if you looked at it the wrong way it would break."

David K.

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LOL

:)
 
It's a great piece of kit

FOR THE MONEY!

I've got a V-amp II, had it since christmas and it's in use most days...no sign of it falling apart yet.

Apart from using it to record guitar in my home studio I've used the tube pre sim with some pretty good results on both bass and vocal recordings.

It's not built quite as well as the POD but then it's almost half the price. If you are scared you might stand on it and break it splash out the extra $35 and get the 19" rackmount version with the 24/96 digital out.

This little gem can be a life saver in a home studio where 1) MONEY and 2) noise levels come into the equation



It's not built from gold but it is capable of giving platimum results at a fraction of its rivals cost.

SLAY HIM - HE USES BEHRINGER

Check it out at http://www.v-amp.com
 
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I have all three (POD, V-Amp and J-Station) and although I agree with Lemon Tree that the V-Amp does a good job, all three are roughly equivalent and the J-Station is on sale at Musician's Friend for $99 right now which makes it the cheapest and is also in a nice metal casing so I would go that way if you need one but see Blue Bear's post first.
 
One real plus to these is their direct recording option. This allows for silence recording of guitar sound, which sometimes late at night can be a real plus.

If you're miking a guitar amp, it's gonna make noise.

Ed
 
the behringer v-amp is an amplifier simulator with various effects built in.

You need one if you live around other people and would like to record guitar parts without getting evicted. You need one if you don't want to splurge for 25 different amps so that you have tonal options when recording. You need one because they are so inexpensive, you can't go wrong with buying one.

As far as fragility goes, I've had my v-amp 1 for 2 years this December and it is working extremely well. But then, I don't allow football or rugby to be played near my recording gear. It's made of plastic. Which means it's about as fragile as a microphone(I dont see any iron mics coming out soon) or a recording cable. It's much more resilient than a cd or cassette and those seem to last pretty well in my home as well.

For the people who don't like amp simulators, I say the moment you multitrack any part it's fake. I say when you can sell me the amount of amps my vamp copies(as well as the soundproofing materials for my home, as well as the nice mics) for under 150 bucks, I'll buy them. Until then, I'm happy to fake things. Which is what recording music is all about.
 
Both the Line 6 POD and Behringer V-Amp products are very similar in sound and features. Both can make low noise quality guitar recordings silently.

I choose the POD line, because at the time only Line 6 had a rack mount versions. Behringer now also has a rack unit.

As a general rule, the Behringer products are about 1/2 the cost of the Line 6 products. You will be happy with either.

Ed
 
Yo Woodman! Note that there are 2 clear divided camps. One group believes that a mic'd up guitar amp will always give you better sound than an amp modeler. Group 2 believes that an amp modeler, properly used, can give you adequate, even sometimes excellent sound. I believe that an amp modeler, plugged into a good power amp, then a cab, then mic'd up, gives you the best of both worlds. If you want to be quiet, you can go direct into the board. If you want to move air, mic up a cab.-Richie
 
I disagree with your approach to amping a modeler, Richard. Modelers are designed to create a line level signal modeled after the real one as it enters the mixing board, after being sent through a power amp, speakers, and a mic. By running that signal through a power amp and then through speakers and a mic, you are making it sound different -- like miking a real guitar, passing that signal out to an amp, and miking that second amp. Sometimes this gives a good effect but in my experience it sounds poor and really exposes the modeler's inadequacies more than recording its own direct signal.
 
Well, ALchuck, I respectfully agree to disagree with you on this one. You're partly right- the modeler produces a line level output, not the *mic level* that reaches the board from a mic'd up cab. The sound of a microphone being impacted by moving air is a sound I've come to associate with electric guitar for 30 years, and attempts to duplicate that sound by any form of direct input thus far have failed- badly. Most people use amp and cab combinations with too much color (distortion) to reproduce amp and cab models in real acoustic space.
I've had my best luck by sending the line out from the modeler into a powered reference monitor, and mic'ing that. Then one mic is placed into the near field, and jacked into a good mic pre. This produces less noise than any combo amp I've tried. It sounds like hell in the room, unless you're listening right in the near field. When using a real cab, I've gotten very good results by using a power amp bridged to 8 ohms mono into an acoustic amp speaker, mounted in a 1X12 cab. That's alright though, you have every right to not like it. I guess my mileage varies.-Richie
 
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